


Power Switch

by ellydash



Category: Glee
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellydash/pseuds/ellydash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sue and the Cheerios receive second place at Nationals, catalyzing a (literal) explosion that results in Sue teaching a U.S. history class, with a newly promoted Will supervising. Sue’s not happy. Will’s out of his depth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Power Switch

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to Sacrilege (but works as a standalone, so it’s fine if you haven’t read the other one first).

_1\.     not with a bang_

 __

In April, the world ends.

  
Will witnesses the apocalypse, along with several million other people, on ESPN 2’s weekend coverage of the National High School Cheerleading Championships in Orlando. There’s a stunned gasp from the expectant crowd as the judge announces the upset, then a quick close-up on Sue’s face, frozen in a mold of astonishment and mortification. He hears a wail off-camera, a plaintive voice that sounds to his ears like Brittany, although he can’t be sure. Will’s hand rises to his mouth, unbidden. 

  
Second place. 

  
“What a shocker!” the in-studio color commentator exclaims, as the exuberant John Adams High Wildcats jump up and down on the stage, screaming. “You’ve gotta wonder, Mindy, if this is a sign that Sue Sylvester and the Cheerios’ reign over the high school cheerleading world is over. What do you think, does this Wildcats win mean the dawn of a new era?” 

  
Will doesn’t hear Mindy’s chipper answer. He’s wondering what a second place Sue Sylvester means for McKinley, for their students, for him. For the two of them. A wave of nausea swamps him, and he turns over in his mind all the different ways she might re-knit her humiliation into fresh banners for her crusades. Will knows he’ll get sewn in somehow.

  
Because, even though Sue still won’t openly acknowledge it, there’s now a “them,” a bizarre and unsteady sexual reciprocity they’ve been indulging in for the past four months. He hasn’t been able to find a word for what they are to one another. “Lovers” implies a sickly-sweet sentimentality he still can’t bring himself to feel for Sue. “Friends with benefits,” maybe, except he’s pretty sure friendship is supposed to be more like what he has with Shannon, straightforward and easy. 

  
 _We take this one day at a time_ , he’d promised Sue, months ago.  _No labels, no guarantees_. The thing is, though, Will prefers labels, enjoys guarantees, even though he’s spent the last four months trying to convince himself he doesn’t need them. It’s starting to itch at him, that he can’t sum up their erratic connection in a pithy and convenient phrase.

  
Until now, it’s worked well for the two of them, what they’ve been able to put together. Sue gets to mock him after work and on weekends and in bed too, wordplay she fashions and polishes just for Will. Her insults are little offerings he’s secretly pleased to receive, simply because she cares enough to compose them. 

  
Sometimes they watch _Ice Road Truckers_  together, and just last week she’d agreed, reluctantly, that he could leave a toothbrush in her bathroom cabinet. He’s gotten used to her, as familiar as anyone can be with a stealth agent like Sue Sylvester. Will knows the pattern of her armor better than anyone else, knows where the rivets and seams of it fit together. He’s learning how to dip underneath and find her skin, even if he doesn’t stay below for very long. 

  
He stares at the TV screen, at the graphic that reads WILDCATS WIN 2011 NHSCC IN SHOCKING UPSET, and he realizes, with a sinking heart, that all bets are off. 

  
Will sends her a text, later that evening, when he knows she’s on the supersonic jet back from Orlando. He’s got an image in his head: Sue sitting in first class, her glare inexorably fixed on the cabin wall in front of her, while her Cheerios sleep propped up in the seats behind, tears drying on their cheeks.  _You ok_? he types, betting she’s left her cell on for the flight.

  
Half an hour later, his phone rings. 

  
“Bravo, William,” Sue informs him, before he’s even said hello. “That text displayed a  _stunning_  aptitude for incompetence generally only seen in Democratic congressional campaigns. You’ve managed to find the most offensively milquetoast phrase in the English language. Buy a thesaurus.” She hangs up. 

  
He thinks for a few minutes, then tries again:  _come over when you get back_. 

  
There’s no response, and Will’s not surprised. Sue’s not a fan of texting. She’s told him more than once that pixels on a three-inch screen can’t adequately convey the subtle gradations of her magnificence.

  
He keeps his phone in his pocket, though, just in case. 

  
In the middle of the night, he wakes to the sound of Sue’s key turning in the lock, slowly, and he can hear her feet shuffling over the doorstep. Will looks at the clock on his nightstand. 3:42am.

  
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she says, too loudly, as he makes his way through the dining room nook towards her, his head still thick with sleep. “I have plans to execute. I need to make a call. Sergei should know where I can track down a BMP-1 amphibious infantry vehicle.” 

  
She’s still wearing the brilliant gold tracksuit he’d seen her in on television, but the sheen of its fabric is dulled in the dim glow of the foyer. The lines around her mouth and eyes are deeper, more pronounced then he’d remembered, although it might be a trick of the light. She looks exhausted.

  
“Sue,” he tries. 

  
“I  _don’t_ ,” she snaps, “want to talk about it. And if you try to make me, I swear to God I’ll fillet you open with the sawed-off baton I keep under the passenger seat in my LeCar.” 

  
“I’m sorry.” Will knows that sympathy isn’t what she needs to hear from him, but he’s not sure what else he can give her. It’s all he has. “Sue, I’m so, so sorry. I know how it –”

  
“Not acceptable,” Sue interrupts, her face white. Will isn’t sure which one of them she means. 

  
He asks her if there’s anything else he can do to help, instead, and Sue pauses before grabbing his arm and pulling him through the dining room, the hallway, and into the bedroom. Inside, she slams him into the wall by the dresser, hard, knocking his head against the plaster. Will exclaims, distressed. It  _hurts_.

  
Sue pushes her body over his, her hands curling tight around his upper arms. “This,” she says into his throat, and her voice is rutted with pain. “ _This_  is what you can do.”

  
Her mouth sucks at his jaw, and Will nods, silently. He can give her the win she needs.

  
They don’t talk. 

  
Later, when Sue’s rocking on top of him in the dark, furiously hunting the climax that’s evading her, he reaches up to touch her cheek. He slides the pads of his fingers over her skin. It’s warm and wet. 

  
Will keeps his fingers there for several seconds, awed and a little terrified. He can’t trust what he’s discovered. 

 

 

 _2\.      the same war continues. We have breathed the grits of it in, all our lives_

 

On Thursday, Will gets called into Figgins’s office just before lunchtime, and when he enters, Sue’s already there, in the middle of a diatribe. She breaks off in mid sentence, glaring at Will like he’s broken out in a plaid rash. “William,” she sniffs. “Your hair’s looking exceptionally pubic today.”

  
“And yours is doing a really accurate impersonation of Hillary Clinton,” he retorts, because he’s still a little miffed at her from how roughly she’d handled him. The line earns Will a hurt scowl.

  
“Sue,” Figgins interrupts, trying to regain her attention. “Just this morning, I received a phone call from a Ms. Emily Carter-Smythe, who informed me that she is the cheerleading coach at John Adams High – ”

  
“That woman poses a threat to national security,” Sue cuts in. “I created an internet petition on Monday that demands her forced extradition back to England, and so far it’s received  _over seven thousand signatures_  in less than  _forty-eight hours_. Apparently, America agrees with me.” 

  
“Most of those signatures are yours, Sue,” Will mutters, sitting on the couch. She’d emailed him the link that morning. “In fact, if I had to guess, I’d bet all of them are yours. Especially the eight pages in a row where the only signature is ‘Will “Vintage Merkin Enthusiast” Schuester.’ Eight  _pages_ , Sue.”

  
“Anyone could’ve written that. You probably wrote it in your sleep.” She turns to Figgins, jabbing her finger in Will’s direction. “What the hell is  _he_  doing here, anyway? I don’t need a badly-arranged four-part harmony. I don’t need someone who can fool the employees at Roberto’s Taco Palace into thinking he’s the romantic lead in a telenovela.” 

  
“That was a one-time thing,” Will mumbles. “I was drunk. You’re such a bad influence.”

  
“Enough!” Figgins roars, startling them both into silence. “As I was saying, Sue, before your rude interruption, I received a call from Coach Carter-Smythe informing me that in the middle of the night  _someone_  apparently blasted a hole the size of a small elephant in the north wall of John Adams’ gymnasium. It looks to them like the work of a cannon.”

  
Sue crooks her head at Will and winks broadly. The news, Will’s sure, should bother him more than it does, but honestly, he’s feeling pretty relieved. He’s been waiting for the explosion, literal or figurative, since he’d witnessed Sue’s moment of disgrace, and now he knows where it’s detonated: thankfully, far away from him, and far away from his students. 

  
“No freaking clue what you’re talking about, Figgy,” Sue says, nonchalantly, still watching Will, winking again. Figgins throws his hands up in the air. 

  
“There’s confetti  _all over_  that gym, Sue!” he shouts. “Custom confetti with ‘McKinley High School Cheerios’ stamped on it! Confetti, I might add, for which I signed the order forms back in February!”

  
“Gloria Allred’s gonna tear that so-called ‘logic’ to shreds smaller than my custom confetti when this goes to trial, and you know it. Anyone could’ve taken my cannons.”

  
Figgins slams his fasts on top of the table, and both Will and Sue jump. “I am _fed up_  with your disturbing attraction to these felonious escapades, Sue! It’s one thing to let you run wild around this campus, and another entirely when you start causing damage at another school. Effective today, I’m shutting down Cheerios practice and placing you on suspension. Again.”

  
“ _What_?” Sue shrieks. “You’re  _what_?”

  
Will rolls his eyes, unimpressed with their performances. He’s seen this show before.

  
“Suspension. Through the rest of the school year. You’ll have plenty of time to get your students ready for another run at Nationals starting in September. Just think of this as cooling-off time. It might be good for you, and for them, to think about something other than cheerleading for a while. I have a proposal – ”

  
“The school board will  _not_  stand for this.” Sue’s quivering with rage. “You can’t just suspend the number one cheerleading coach in the country – and, might I add, your major revenue source for this school – because of some bullshit unsubstantiated allegations by that inbred, crooked-tooth  _floozy_. I let you slap me on the wrist last year because I wanted to spend some time on the beach in Boca with my tactical hunting binoculars. It’s not happening again.”

  
“Let me remind you, Sue,” Figgins says, quietly, “that you came in second at Nationals. You are no longer number one. If your endorsements and donation coffers haven’t already begun drying up, I have no doubt they will very soon.”

  
Sue’s jaw drops so quickly Will thinks he can hear it pop. 

  
“You realize,” he interjects, from his position on the couch, “that suspending her is going to have absolutely no punitive effect whatsoever? I mean, look at what happened last time. She went on vacation. With  _pay_.”

  
“I do realize that, William,” Figgins acknowledges, as Sue fixes Will with a warning stare that could melt steel. “Which is why I’ve come up with what I believe is an ideal solution. You are both aware that Donna Morales is about to go on maternity leave.”

  
“She was always weak.”

  
“Sue, I’ve gone through your file, and it seems, astonishing though it may be, that you in fact possess a teaching certificate with a specialty in history, obtained in 1988 from what appears to be a now-defunct mail-order catalogue.”

  
“Oh, no,” Will groans, already guessing what Figgins is about to suggest. “Bad idea.  _Bad_  idea.”

  
Figgins dismisses Will’s concern with a wave of his hand. “I propose that rather then vacate the school premises during your coaching suspension, you take over Donna’s U.S. History class through the end of the school year. It saves me the trouble of employing a long-term substitute, and allows the children some continuity, since most of them already know and fear you.”

  
“No way,” Sue snarls. “Not happening.”

  
“If you don’t,” Figgins says, simply, “I’ll give William here a chance to see what he can do with a quarter of your budget, permanently. You don’t seem to understand, Sue. This is a new era. With your loss at Nationals, I have no incentive to allow you the extravagances to which you’ve become so accustomed. Show me you’re willing to play ball, and I’ll be lenient.”

  
A  _quarter_  of the Cheerios budget? Will feels dizzy. The costumes he could afford with that money. The stage productions. The equipment he could invest in without siphoning off of the a/v club. The back catalogues he could accrue. They could take a plane to New York City. 

  
“And William,” adds Figgins, unable to keep a grin from stretching his mouth, “as to why I have called you here, I am appointing you section head of the arts and humanities division here at McKinley – yes, William, I’m giving you a new title, and yes, it means more responsibility, and no, there is no raise of salary involved. As section head, you will be supervising Sue’s classes twice a week, to ensure that her pedagogy is sufficiently, shall we say, legal. I believe that you’re capable of keeping her in line.”

  
A nervous, nearly hysterical spurt of laughter escapes from Will, and he coughs, quickly, to cover it up. If Figgins only knew the half of it –

  
Sue opens and closes her mouth, shocked, at a loss for words. She gestures in Will’s direction, her arm sweeping in shaky circles.

  
“This,” she sputters, “is more outrageous than the pistol-whipping Helen Keller gave Millard Fillmore when he wouldn’t hand over her hush money.”

  
Figgins beams at Will. “I think,” he observes, “that this arrangement will turn out to be a satisfactory solution for all involved.”

  
Will puts his hands over his face. 

 

 

 _3\.      I came to explore the wreck; the words are maps_

 __

  
“Power,” he announces in glee rehearsal the following Monday, and smacks his hand on the portable whiteboard, where he’s written the word, in all caps. “We all want it – well, most of us do, anyway. Some of us have it, and then lose it. Some of us never have it at all. I want you all to think about what this word means to you.”

  
“Sex,” Santana immediately offers, and winks at Puck, who grins, adding, “Yeah, totally.”

  
Will sighs. “Okay, fine, but think a little more deeply about it, guys. Beyond the physical. What is power, really?”

  
“Not feeling like you have to keep quiet?” Tina volunteers, her voice tentative. 

  
“Good, Tina, that’s a good answer. What else?”

  
Rachel’s hand shoots into the air. “Power is when you condescend to come back to the small town you grew up in after you’ve won two Tonys and a Drama Desk Award, and everyone is so distraught with remorse for how poorly they treated you that they collectively sob for forgiveness and get in fights over who should kiss your feet first.”

  
“That’s a little too specific for our purposes here, Rachel, but okay, thank you. Anyone else?”

  
“Coach Sylvester told us,” Quinn says, quietly, “that power is the greatest commodity there is.” She ticks off three points on her fingers. “It’s about expertise, authority, and coercion. You get to the top by mastering something that everyone else thinks is valuable. When you have something everyone else wants, you’re in control. You can make them do what you want.” 

  
Will blinks. “That’s – fairly accurate,” he says, for lack of a better response. “Okay, so what I’d like all of you to do is find a song that expresses your feelings about power – having it, not having it, whatever you want. Prepare a performance, all right? You’ve got one week.” 

  
“Um,” Artie interrupts. “Mr. Schue, Nationals are in, like, six weeks. Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out what we’re going to do? I mean, I know you’re the teacher and all, but I’m guessing the Warblers and Vocal Adrenaline aren’t sitting around right now discussing themes.”

  
“Can I do Whitesnake?” Finn asks, brightly. 

  
“Whitesnake sang power ballads, not songs  _thematically_  concerned with power, Finn, so no, you can’t. And Artie, we’ll get there soon, I promise. Think of this assignment as a brief stop on the trip to Nationals.” Will knows Artie has a point, but he’s stubborn enough that he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He’s not sure why, exactly, he hasn’t been throwing himself into preparing a competition set list. God knows Dustin Goolsby’s probably hacked into the iTunes catalogues of each of the Nationals judges to get a sense of their taste in music. 

  
Will wonders, uneasily, if there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to win. 

  
“We’ll get there,” he repeats, to cover his awkward silence. “Okay? In the meantime, find a partner, do a solo, start googling, and see what you uncover. Who knows, maybe we’ll get some inspiration for our set list.”

  
As the kids file out, laughing and chatting, Will calls Rachel back. She turns to face him, looking worried, like she’s trying to think of what she’s done wrong. 

  
“Rachel, you’re in Mrs. Morales’s history class, right?” he asks her, shuffling through sheet music on top of the piano. 

  
“Yes,” she says, slowly. “Why? Has she said something about me? I know I raise my hand too often – ”

  
“No, you haven’t done anything wrong, Rachel, it’s just –” He tries to think of a way he can ask this of her without it sounding inappropriate, realizes it’s a lost cause, and barrels ahead. “Sue’s going to be filling in starting later this week while Mrs. Morales is out on maternity leave, and I’d like you to give me a heads-up on what she’s doing with you guys. Lesson plans, tests, homework, attempts at corporal punishment. Things like that.”

  
Her face pales. “Sue Sylvester? Teaching history? Mr. Schue, are you sure she’s not going to co-opt the class for calisthenics training? Because I could absolutely see her letting the Cheerios use us as weights, and my wardrobe choices are not conducive to being flipped horizontally.”

  
“I’m sure,” he says, even though he’s not. “I’ll be sitting in a couple of times a week to check. Just – will you let me know how things go in there? On a day-to-day basis?”

  
“Of course, Mr. Schue,” Rachel promises, clearly pleased that he’s requested her help, and Will’s grateful that she doesn’t think to ask him why he needs the information in the first place. He doesn’t know how he’d answer.

 

__

 

Sue’s reading in bed. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her read.

  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read,” Will tells her, because he still hasn’t learned to control the filter between his mouth and his brain. 

  
Sue looks at him over her glasses, resting the oversized book on her lap. She’s wearing a set of track suit pajamas, and as far as Will can tell, the only difference between these and her typical uniform is the fabric: cotton instead of polyester. 

  
“You haven’t seen me do a lot of things, Schuester,” she informs him. “You haven’t seen me take down an enemy combatant at a forty-foot range with a Remington 700 SPS Tactical rifle. You haven’t seen me perform my devastating impression of one Mrs. Edna Garrett. Don’t assume you’re privy to all my considerable talents.”

  
Will pulls back the covers, sliding in next to her. “Mrs. Garrett? From  _The Facts of Life_? Really?” 

  
“Really,” she says, raising the book again, reaching for the pen on the nightstand. “Now, be quiet. You’re distracting me.”

  
He touches her arm. “Don’t you want to – ?” 

  
“If I  _did_ ,” Sue snaps, “I’d have had you stripped and bent over an hour ago. Unlike you, William, some of us take our work seriously. I have lessons to plan. Go masturbate into a sock.”

  
“Is that – ?” He crooks his neck to look at the cover. “That’s the textbook Donna uses. I’ve seen Rachel carrying it. You’re actually using it to create your lesson plans?” In all the different permutations Will had imagined for Sue’s history class, a by-the-book approach had never occurred to him. A scenario where Figgins called in the National Guard, yes, but status quo?

  
She sighs, exasperated. “The first rule of battle, Will. We’ve been over this. What is it?”

  
“Know your enemy,” he says, immediately. 

  
“Correct.” Sue lifts the textbook, waggles it at him. “This  _book_ ,” she explains, her voice soaked with derision, “is the enemy. It lacks everything that makes history a worthwhile subject. There’s not a sentence in here that hasn’t been wrung bloodless by a panel of mealy-mouthed academics. I intend to have the students light their copies on fire on the first day. With blowtorches.”

  
“You’re joking.” Will knows she isn’t.

  
“I’m as serious as a Serbian art film, William.”

  
“You can’t do that.”

  
She pulls her glasses off her face. He’s always thought her glasses were incongruous with the image of Sue Sylvester; they’re a marker of weakness, a telling sign that she, in fact, has frail parts. “Are you speaking in your  _official_  capacity as Figgy’s nebbish warden?”

  
“I’m saying that if you actually give  _blowtorches_  to minors so they can destroy school property, there’s going to be consequences.”

  
“We’ll see,” she retorts. “I’m not about to take a pedagogical order from someone who, when asked if he prefers Marky Mark the singer or Mark Wahlberg the actor, actually chooses Marky Mark.”

  
“His second album was an underrated masterpiece,” Will insists, feebly.

  
“Your mistake, buddy, was in choosing at all. The answer is: both versions should be boiled in oil and fed in manageable pieces to John Travolta. Although I would’ve also accepted ‘the Funky Bunch’ as a suitable response.” 

  
Will changes the subject, not wanting to start the fight she’s clearly itching to pick. “What textbook are you using, then?”

  
“History isn’t meant to be taught using a textbook. It’s meant to be taught as it’s lived: under pressure.” She slams the book shut abruptly, placing it, her glasses and her pen on the nightstand. “Turn out the light,” she orders, flopping on her side, facing away from him. “I’m tired. I need my sleep.”

  
He reaches over to the bedside lamp, presses the switch. 

  
“Try not to kick me tonight,” he says, looking at the dark huddled shape of her under the covers. 

  
“Don’t put your legs in my kicking path,” she retorts, and yanks the blankets up to her chin. 

 

  
 _4\.      I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker_

 __

 __

Will’s late to Sue’s first class at the end of the week, thanks to an overlong conversation with Shannon in the faculty lounge, and when he tries to sneak into the classroom quietly, Sue breaks off in the middle of her sentence.

  
“William,” she announces, gesturing at him with an enthusiasm that he knows foreshadows calamity. “I know I speak for all of us here when I say I’m  _thrilled_  that you’re planning on perching in the back of the room like a ridiculous cartoon vulture ready to feed off the entrails of my considerable knowledge. Class, look at Mr. Schuester.”

  
The students turn, in unison, to face Will. Rachel’s cringing.  _I’m sorry_ , she mouths, and he smiles at her, a silent thanks. 

  
“Hi, guys,” Will announces. He waves, awkwardly. Twenty-five faces stare back at him.

  
“You are looking,” Sue states, her voice inflating to grand oratory, “at a man whose primary achievement in life to date has been a brave refusal to permanently aspirate the follicle miscarriage induced by his clearly suicidal sebaceous glands. A man who keeps in his freezer a stack of Lean Cuisines taller than Danny DeVito. Whose prized possession is a signed LP of Bell Biv Devoe’s 1990 hit ‘Poison.’”

  
There’s a snicker from the front of the classroom, and Will feels a sudden rush of anger. 

  
“Don’t you have a class to teach, Sue?” he asks, sharply. “If you want me to give Figgins a good report, insulting me isn’t the best way to go about it. Besides, I wouldn’t bring up the subject of prized possessions, unless you want me to tell everyone about the lock of Josh Groban’s hair you use to bookmark your journal.” He slaps his hand over his mouth; feigns an exaggerated look of dismay. “Oh,  _whoops_.”

  
Someone to Will’s right, just out of his peripheral vision, whistles, a low, uneasy note. The class swivels in their seats towards the front of the room, almost in unison, in anticipation of Sue’s reaction.

  
Her face is red with anger, and she points at the door. “Out, Schuester.” 

  
He doesn’t move. 

  
“You must’ve poured hair gel directly into your ear canals this morning,” she says, astonished. “I told you to get  _out_.”

  
Will grips the edges of the counter behind him, leaning against it. “No, Sue.”

  
Rachel gasps at this defiance, and covers her face to try and hide her grin.

  
“If you don’t hike that chiseled carcass of yours outside this classroom right now – ”

  
“You’ll what?” he breaks in. “Destroy my glee club? Pull Quinn, Brittany and Santana? Steal my set lists? You’ve shown all your cards already, Sue. You don’t have anything left.”

  
She sputters her refutation, a nonsensical sibilance of fury so lacking in her usual wit that Will understands he’s managed to win this battle, and the realization makes him laugh out loud, in a burst of pleasure and disbelief. “Go ahead,” he says, magnanimously, and sweeps a mocking hand in front of him. “Teach  _history_. Don’t let me keep you.”

  
When the bell rings forty minutes later, after she’s spent the rest of the class lecturing on the Civil War’s little-known Battle of Fresno, the students rush out, glancing at Will like they’re not sure what to make of him anymore. Rachel whispers a quick “Good job, Mr. Schue,” and gives him a furtive thumbs-up. He returns the gesture, biting his lower lip in goofy emphasis. 

  
“The Battle of Fresno?” he asks Sue, when the classroom’s empty. She’s slamming the drawers of Donna Morales’s desk, giving the impression she’s looking for something, but Will’s fairly sure she just wants to vent her frustration. “You realize these are young and impressionable minds you’re shaping, here. It’s your responsibility to give them accurate information.”

  
“There are so  _many_  facets of your personality, William, that I find repellant, but your irritating superciliousness is right up there, second only to your astounding lack of imagination.” Sue punctuates her sentence with a vicious kick to the bottom desk drawer. “Whether or not the Civil War included a meth-induced skirmish is totally irrelevant.  _Facts don’t matter_. Not a single one of these kids’ll remember who John Brown or Horace Greeley are by the time they’re running PTA meetings and self-medicating with oxycodone to get through the day. You think any of  _your_  kids’ll remember how to conjugate an irregular verb five minutes after they leave your classroom?”

  
“Well, I –”

  
“That was a rhetorical question, Will, which in no way invited you to interrupt me. By the time these students leave  _my_  classroom at the end of the school year, they’ll have developed something far more precious than so-called ‘facts’: the ability to absorb, regurgitate and examine information –  _any_  information – when prompted. The  _process_  is what’s important here, not the details.” She straightens up, glaring at him. “I may have backed into this position unwillingly, but understand this, William: whatever Sue Sylvester attempts, she executes flawlessly.”

  
Will remembers the look of humiliation on her face he’d seen magnified on his television screen, but manages to keep from bringing up the point. He’s inflicted enough damage on her for one day.

  
“Can I come over?” he asks, instead, the request a kind of apology. “Tonight? I could use some company while I grade. I’ll bring wine. We can throw my exams down your hallway and I’ll grade them based on how far they fly. I know you like doing that.”

  
She purses her lips. “Maybe,” she says, grudgingly. “Is it good wine?”

  
“No,” he admits. “I think the vineyard it’s from is in Iowa.”

  
This earns an appreciative snort from her, and Will doesn’t have the heart to tell Sue he’s not kidding. 

  
He looks back at her over his shoulder as he walks out. There’s something tugging at him he can’t identify, something uneasy and tender and raw.

 

 

 _5\.      you with fire running in your veins: sit down in fire_

 __

 __

It’s the unsurprising secret folded beneath the larger riddle of their coupling: how rough they get with one another in bed.

  
He receives the worst of it, by far: teeth marks, scrapes and light bruises he hides under long sleeves and collared shirts. It thrills Will, shames him a little too, when he catches a glimpse of his body in the bathroom mirror before showering and sees how she’s damaged him, how she’s left behind the ghosts of her fingers, her teeth, her nails. It’s their unspoken accord. Sue dictates the terms, and Will submits, letting Sue do to him with her mouth and tongue and toys what she does elsewhere with words: evisceration, annihilation, ruin. He falls apart with her.

  
He’d asked Sue once, confused, why she enjoyed going down on him if she got off on being dominant, and she’d sighed with irritation. “It never fails to astonish me,” she’d informed him, “how exceptionally, extraordinarily terrible you are at understanding simple power dynamics. There’s nothing submissive about giving a blowjob – and you know what, Will? That phrase is insulting. I’m not  _giving_  you anything.  _You_  are giving  _me_  the most sensitive and vulnerable part of your body to do with what I please.”

  
Tonight, it’s taken Will nearly fifteen minutes of persuading to get Sue into bed, and he’s got a sneaking suspicion that the bottle of sour Iowan wine they’ve consumed has something to do with her capitulation. She’s curled on her side, facing him, with an expression of boredom that doesn’t falter as he unzips her jacket, slides an impatient hand underneath her tank top. It’s the first time Sue’s let Will near her body since the night she’d attacked him in his bedroom, after Nationals.

  
“You have great breasts,” he observes. “It’s a shame they’re always hidden away under a tracksuit.” 

  
Even lying down, her head on a pillow, Sue manages a look that’s replete with condensation. “My look is outstanding. If you think I’m gonna change it just to satisfy the greedy, milky eyes of an oversexed vaudevillian, you’re higher than Willie Nelson at a Pfish concert.”

  
“It’s the world’s loss, then.” He pulls down the tank top, exposing her breast, and takes the nipple between his teeth, biting gently. “Take this stuff off, will you? It’s in my way.”

  
Sue sighs (in annoyance? pleasure? it’s always hard for him to tell), but she sits up and shrugs off the jacket, pulls the tank top over her head. Will reaches behind her to unfasten her bra. 

  
“Failure,” she observes, as he struggles with the clasp. It’s her standby invective, the word she retreats to when she doesn’t feel like expending the effort to harvest another witticism. The corner of her mouth twitches a little, and she tosses the unhooked bra at him; she knows her insults are like sparks to the wick of his body. 

  
“Hey, I’m not the one who just got humiliated on national television,” Will retorts, not thinking, and immediately cringes after the words leave his mouth. Oh,  _shit_. Too far. Way too far.

  
She jerks away from him, instantly tensing. “ _What_  did you just say to me, Will Schuester?” 

  
Will looks at her, startled. Clearly she’s furious with him, that’s not unexpected – and honestly, Sue’s got a right to be angry that he’s rasping at her still-fresh wound. But there’s something else in her voice, humming below her anger: a low lilt of intrigue. 

  
Sue’s staring at him, propped up on her elbow, still imperious even half-nude. “Well?” she adds, and now he knows what he’s hearing: a challenge. She’s throwing down a gauntlet, to see if he’ll retreat or pick it up. She’s done this with him a few times before, tested him to see if he’s willing to chase her up another escalation. Usually, he backs down.  _I didn’t mean it. You’re right. Whatever you say_. 

  
He’s tired of acting like the Nationals catastrophe didn’t happen, tired of pretending it hasn’t sparked this troubled shift between them. She’s been sharper with him over the past two weeks, methodically annihilating those small shards of humanity he’s managed to excavate, and Will’s coming to realize that even he can’t take her undiluted abuse much longer.

  
Something’s got to change. Even if the fallout means he goes back by himself to the shrieking silence of his apartment; even then.

  
“You heard me,” he tells her, heart picking up pace. One of them needs to confront it. “I said I’m not the loser here, Sue. You are.”

  
She’s on top of him almost before he realizes it, snarling into his neck and ear and hair, her nails biting at his arms. “ _No one_  calls me that,” she hisses, and then she’s yelping in surprise as he manages to top her, hands gripping her shoulders, pressing her back against the bed. Her hands flare helplessly, trying to grab at him, to pull him off. She wasn’t expecting him to fight back; he can tell. 

  
For a moment, they dance like this: he pushes his hands into her, the heels of his palms grinding just above her collarbone, and Sue aims for Will’s chest, his stomach, whatever flesh is closest. Her eyes flash with the apprehension of a cornered animal. 

  
He lifts one leg over hers, and carefully straddles her hips, sliding his hands down to restrain her upper arms. Sue’s mouth drops open, and her hands fall to her sides, thumping against the mattress. She’s pinned. She stares up at him. 

  
“Let me go,” she demands, but the fury’s gone from her voice. 

  
“No,” Will snaps. The thrill of denying her something she wants makes him almost light-headed. He shuts his eyes briefly, feeling the low, lovely tremor of lust shake him, and he doesn’t have to look down to know he’s already half-hard, quickly growing.

  
“You’re  _disobeying_  me?” A telltale pink flush spreads slowly over Sue’s face and neck.  _Oh_ , Will thinks, recognizing the familiar marker of her arousal, watching her squirm slightly under him.  _Isn’t that interesting_. 

  
“Yeah, I am,” he says, looking closely at her. “We’re going to do this my way, for once. Whether you like it or not.” He pulls his t-shirt over his head. 

  
“Say it with more  _conviction_ , Schuester,” Sue mocks, but she’s taking in his torso with greedy eyes. “You can’t command a glee club made up of sexually ambiguous bottom-feeding teenagers. What makes you think you can make me do what you want?” 

  
In response, he wrenches down her tracksuit pants and underwear past her thighs and licks a deliberate, slow stripe across her lower belly, just above the pubic mound. Sue shudders as his tongue drags over her skin. “More,” she orders, trying to thrust his head between her legs. 

  
He resists, pushing back against her hands, and lifts his head. “No.”

  
Sue’s face darkens, although it isn’t clear whether it’s anger or lust causing the change. Maybe both. She fists a hand in his hair, pulling hard to show she means business, and he cries out, frustrated; she’s not going to get the advantage here. Not tonight. 

  
“I know what you want from me,” Will pants, trying to pry her hand out of his hair, “even if you can’t admit it. It’s why you haven’t wanted to touch me for the last two weeks. Fucking me isn’t working for you anymore, is it, Sue? Topping me?” He tears the hand free. “You want me to take a turn. Make you beg for a change.”

  
“You’re  _weak_ ,” she sneers, and reaches down to fumble at the zipper on his khakis. “You think you can make  _Sue Sylvester_ beg? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since John Boehner’s last press conference. Buddy, you couldn’t make a drowning man beg for a life vest.”

  
Will realizes, with an accompanying kick of desire low in his stomach, that it’s not a denial. 

  
Sue’s breathing hard.

  
He lets his hand drop back to her breast, thumbing the erect nipple. She hums in her throat, a sound like irritation, invitation.

  
“Feel good?” he asks. 

  
“Pathetic,” Sue says, hoarsely, reaching into his khakis. 

  
Will grabs her wrist and pulls her hand up towards him, isolating her index finger. He watches her face while he draws her inside his mouth, circling his tongue around the fingertip like he does to her clit, like he’s done to her strap-on.

  
At the press and suck of his tongue on her, Sue swears and arches, just a little, against the mattress, her chest rebounding with the quick oscillation of her breath. Her other hand moves down between her legs. He follows it with his eyes, fascinated, as she slips two fingers inside herself, before he remembers that Sue doesn’t get to control what happens here. 

  
Will bites down on the finger in his mouth to remind her, and her hips jerk up against her hand in response to the pain: once, twice. 

  
“ _No_ ,” he tells her, “you don’t get to do that,” and he yanks her left hand away. It smacks against the mattress, without resistance. She watches as he pulls off his pants and boxers, staring at his twitching cock, full and slick at the tip; she slowly draws her index finger out of his mouth.

  
“Well, look at you, William.” There’s no confidence in Sue’s voice, no real wit, just the shaky tenor of increasing need. “You’re almost butch enough to wear my strap-on.”

  
He leans over her, naked now, rubbing deliberately against her thigh. She’s staring at him, flushed and wanting. “You’d like that tonight, I think,” he observes, realizing the truth of it as he speaks. “Getting fucked with your own cock.” 

  
“God,  _Will_ ,” she whimpers, and purses her lips together to stop the  _yes_  he knows is bursting in her throat. 

  
“If you ask me, I’ll do it.” He reaches down between their bodies and fists himself, pulling, the friction incredible. Sue lifts her hips, appealing wordlessly for his attention, and Will finds her swollen clit with his thumb, brushes it lightly. She gasps, bucking against him. The raw sound pulls at Will, makes him want to forget this game he’s started, to spread her legs and fuck into her until he can’t hear or see or speak.

  
He slides his thumb away, trembling, and Sue mewls at the loss of pressure, her mouth open and red and panting.

  
“Ask me.” Will doesn’t recognize his own voice; it’s cracked, wrecking against the walls of his throat. “Sue. Ask me. Ask me.”

  
There’s nothing but their labored breathing, and then, she whispers: “Please.” 

  
It’s quiet, but it’s there: shaking out of her, a broken plea. Will has to bite down hard on his lower lip to keep from coming.

  
“Please, what?” he manages, and cups her face in his hands, panting. He wants to hear her say it.

  
“Please,” Sue repeats, her voice thick, and says the word again, like she doesn’t know what else she can tell him. There’s no more script. “Will –  _please_.”

  
He kisses her then, a fierce careless knocking of teeth. Sue whimpers into his open mouth and he thinks,  _I’m in, I’m under her armor_. And then, an illogical wave of panic:  _Don’t let me get trapped here_.

  
The strap-on harness Sue keeps in her bedside table drawer fits him surprisingly well, considering it’s adjusted for Sue’s hips, not Will’s. He struggles into it, nestling his pulsing cock into the fabric pouch, fastening the Velcro straps, rolling on the condom she always insists on using when she fucks him. Without a word from him, Sue flips over onto her stomach, rising to her hands and knees, and he realizes she’s assumed the position she likes him in best. 

  
His hands grip her hips, shaking. She reaches back between her legs for the plastic cock, guiding him, and Will can’t wait anymore; he pushes, gasping, into her cunt, a deep desperate thrust that drives a shattered moan from her throat. 

  
“Beautiful,” he breathes, meaning her, meaning the way she’s opening for him. It’s the closest he knows he’ll ever get to an endearment with Sue, and when Will bends down against her back, Sue’s dildo all the way inside her, he whispers it again, into her damp skin: “Beautiful.”

  
Her arms tremble and she cries out the first notes of her climax, beginning the hot, wet quake that ruins him.

 

  
 _6\.     you melt my wings and call it fun. I should run_

 __

In the aftermath, Will’s mute. He can’t find the right words.

  
Throughout the weekend, he scrolls continuously through his iTunes, hoping that Nirvana or Soundgarden or maybe Air Supply will give him a solution, provide him with lyrics in the absence of prose, but there’s no help there. 

  
Sue doesn’t call him. He wonders if she’s as embarrassed as he is. Probably more so. He’d mocked her to her face, called her a failure, and worse, he’d made her like it. He’d taken her humiliation and her loss of control out of the workplace and into bed with them. Will’s face turns hot at the memory of it, thinking of the wet drone of her skin against his demanding fingers; the way she’d gotten on her hands and knees for him without being prompted.

  
It occurs to Will then that an embarrassed Sue Sylvester, with the added variable of time, mutates into a vengeful Sue Sylvester. His stomach twists, unpleasantly, and the familiar sense of trepidation he’s come to associate with Sue steals up his spine, settling like a small, charged nub in the back of his neck.

  
On Monday afternoon, after a day of successfully avoiding Sue in the hallways (he’s a coward; Will understands and accepts this), he steps into the music room for glee rehearsal and breathes a quiet sigh of relief. It’s a refuge of sorts for him, the only place where he can forget about the mess he’s made of his personal life, and he silently thanks whatever guiding force gave him this sanctuary. 

  
“So,” he begins, rubbing his hands together, taking in his kids’ expectant faces. “You’ve prepared songs for today that have to do with power, right? Tina, what’d you come up with?”

  
Tina beams. “I did some googling, like you said, Mr. Schue, and I discovered that before she was an actress and a spokesperson for CoverGirl, Queen Latifah actually made music!”

  
Will attempts to hide his wince. They’re all so  _young_. “That’s right, Tina. Did you choose something by the Queen?”

  
“U.N.I.T.Y,” Tina announces. “It’s got this amazing feminist message about how men shouldn’t call us bitches and hoes.” She glares at Artie. “It’s girl power before the Spice Girls invented the term.”

  
“Okay, good.” Will looks around the room. “Anyone else?”

  
“Mr. Schue?” Santana’s raising her hand. “Wanna tell us why you picked this theme? Because usually you make up theme weeks when your personal life is exploding. Everyone knows Ms. P-H ditched you for Hot Carl, so it can’t be her. We’re all dying to know what drama bomb went off.”

  
“That’s inappropriate, Santana,” Will replies, automatically. “And honestly, just because I selected a theme for you guys to explore doesn’t mean it has anything to do with my personal life. Give me a little more credit than that, okay?”

  
“Hmm,” she says. He really doesn’t like the knowing tone in her voice. “So it’s not Ms. P-H. Who else at this school do you have a bizarrely intense relationship with? On the faculty, I mean.”

  
“Santana –” 

  
“You and Coach Sylvester seem to know a lot about one another’s personal lives,” she continues. “I mean, like a weird amount. Okay, so this morning, during our meeting, she made this joke about the creepy way you shave your face in the morning before school, making shapes with the foam and stuff. It wasn’t really funny, but it got me thinking: how does she know how you shave your face, Mr. Schue? Why would she be in your bathroom in the morning before school?” 

  
 _Meeting? What meeting?_  “This is not an acceptable conversation,” Will interrupts, flustered, “and unless you want me to take you to see Principal Figgins, I’d recommend you stop talking about this, right now.”

  
His glee kids are wide-eyed, watching him. All of them. 

  
“Suit yourself.” Santana procures her nail file out of an invisible pocket in her skirt, drags it across her index finger. “I’m just saying that this little power-induced crisis you’re having might be linked to your new coziness with Sue.”

  
“I don’t get it,” Puck says, turning to Santana. “What does Sylvester have to do with anything?”

  
“He’s  _doing_  her, Puckerman,” Santana snaps, and Will’s jaw drops in astonishment. 

  
Finn lets out a disbelieving laugh. “That’s not true, right?” he asks. “Right, Mr. Schue? I mean, she’s evil. She’s our enemy. She wrecked the music room right before Christmas, she leaked our set list last year, she’s done everything she can to destroy us. And she’s really mean to Coach Beiste, who’s pretty much the nicest person ever.”

  
“I heard that,” Artie chimes in.

  
Rachel’s staring at Will, and Will, with horror, sees the beginnings of comprehension blooming on her face. 

  
“You asked me to report to you,” she whispers. “I thought you were worried about me, about us, the students – but it was her all along, wasn’t it?”

  
“Rachel,” he tries. “Rachel, please.”

  
“I don’t know how I could’ve been so  _blind_. It’s the classic hate turns to love story. Doris Day and Tony Randall in  _Pillow Talk_. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in  _Taming of the Shrew_.” 

  
 _Who gets to be Elizabeth Taylor in this scenario_ _?_  Will thinks, irrationally.  _Sue or me_ _?_

  
“Except,” Rachel continues, “that this isn’t a timeless film masterpiece. This is real life. This –” Her voice wavers. “This is a betrayal.” 

  
“Deny it, Mr. Schue,” Finn cuts in, loudly. “You’d never do that to us. Just deny it, okay? Please.”

  
Santana’s smirking. “He  _can’t_  deny it, Finn ‘n Out, because it’s true.” She flips her hair behind her shoulders. “Coach Sylvester told me herself.”

  
In the sickening silence that follows, Will reaches out with his right hand, finding the edge of the piano, grabbing it for stability. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He believes every word of what he’s hearing. “Santana, what, exactly, did she tell you?”

  
“That you guys have been fucking since January,” Santana says nonchalantly, and there’s a collective gasp from the group. “She gave me other information, too, but I forgot it on purpose because, seriously,  _gross_. Although there was one very interesting detail Sue mentioned that I wouldn’t mind sharing. You know, in the name of glee club solidarity, or whatever.” She gazes, pointedly, at Will’s crotch, and Will has never, ever in his life, wanted anything more than the ground to open up and claim him. 

  
“My personal life,” he says, finally, “is none of your business. Any of you. Got that?”

  
The look on Finn’s face is the worst of all, Will thinks. It’s bigger than disappointment: it’s disillusionment. Finn’s forehead is wrinkling like someone’s told him the moon is purple, or that rain is dry.

  
“Guys.” Will hears the pleading note in his voice and hates himself for it. “Let’s just change the subject. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  
“Not today, Mr. Schue,” Mercedes informs him, standing up, and she walks out of the music room, her back straight and her head high. After a brief hesitation, Finn follows her. Rachel flounces out behind him, but she’s lacking her usual flair.

  
The last one to walk out is Santana, and she dawdles, smiling at him. “It’s not that big of a deal,” she tells Will. “Everyone will get over it. Eventually.”

  
He resists the sudden, wild impulse to shake her. “Why, Santana? Why’d you have to say anything?” 

  
“Because she told me to,” Santana says, simply. “ _You_  understand.” 

 

 

 _7\.      be secret and take defeat from any brazen throat_

 ____

__She’s waiting for him in her office, correcting papers with a fire-red sharpie marker.

  
“Well, come on in, buddy,” she instructs, without looking up. “No need to close the door, though, since it’s not like there’s anything to hide. By tomorrow, thanks to the miracle of social networking, everyone’s going to know that you and I have been making the beast with two backs for the last four months. I’ve given Santana explicit instructions. Becky has been given the task of creating a Facebook group.” 

  
“Why?” It’s the same question he had for Santana. It’s all Will can manage. 

  
Sue puts down her pen and removes her glasses, pointing them in his direction. “ _You_  asked for this,” she says, harshly. “Remember? When Beiste found out about us thanks to your ridiculous slip-up in the faculty lounge, and you implied it wasn’t a big deal if people knew? I’m just accelerating the process of disclosure.”

  
“My kids,” he says, imploring her. “Sue, I didn’t mean the kids needed to know.”

  
“Did they cry?” She pushes her chair back, lifting her chin. “Is Finn Hudson’s heart broken after finding out that his favorite teacher’s not the saint he thought he was? Is Rachel Berry sitting shiva for you?”

  
“You’re heartless.” Will’s shaking with anger. “You’re horrible, Sue.”

  
“All I did,” she hisses, “was tell the truth. If you’re so  _humiliated_  by those glee kids of yours finding out about us –”

  
It’s like a light bulb’s gone off over his head. That word. “You’re trying to get back at me for the other night, aren’t you? You’re trying to get control.”

  
“To paraphrase the third greatest puppet philosopher of the late twentieth century, I don’t  _try_ , William. I  _do_. I  _did_. I’m sure Figgins won’t be too pleased to learn that his star informant didn’t disclose an improper relationship with the faculty member he’s been supervising.” She folds her hands behind her head, nearly purring with satisfaction. “You can kiss that promotion of yours goodbye.”

  
“I defended you to Shannon, you know,” Will seethes. “I told her she didn’t know you like I did. I told her you were kinder than you let on. But then you go and do this, when you know what it’ll cost me with those kids? I don’t understand it. I don’t get how you can be the way you are with your sister, and then turn around and stab me in the back.”

  
Sue pitches her glasses onto the top of her desk. “Don’t you  _dare_ ,” she warns him, “don’t you dare bring Jean into this.”

  
“Well, whatever ‘this’ is, Sue, I don’t think I can do it anymore,” he says, simply. “Not after what you’ve done. Not after how you’ve done it.”

  
She shakes her head. “Unacceptable. This relationship is over when I say it’s over.”

  
“This isn’t a relationship,” he scoffs, unable to keep the bitter note out of his voice.

  
“Oh, William,” Sue says, and the corners of her mouth turn up in the saddest smile he’s ever seen from her. "Will. It is.” 

  
He gapes at her. “But you told me months ago that you didn’t want – ”

  
“I remember what I told you. Apparently you’ve been too busy not preparing your glee club for Nationals to notice, but there have been  _developments_. I can show you select pages in my journal, if you need a refresher.” 

  
“You don’t need to do that.” Will’s astonished. “Were you, I don’t know, planning on  _informing_  me about these changes at any point in time?” 

  
“Didn’t think it necessary, William, although I clearly overestimated your powers of observation.” She leans back in her chair, and stacks her legs on top of her desk, one foot crossed over the other. “Your toothbrush is in my bathroom cabinet. I’ve tolerated your presence during _Ice Road Truckers_.” A pause. “You met Jean. Believe me, Will, when I tell you: that’s a gift I don't give lightly.”

  
“Is this what you do to people you’re in a relationship with?” he asks, still not quite sure he’s actually having this conversation with her. “Embarrass them in front of their students, just so you can regain the upper hand?”

  
“I did what I had to do,” Sue declares. “To restore the natural order.”

  
“You  _liked_  it.” The observation springs from him unbidden, and he flings it at her like it’s something shameful. “The other night. You came harder than I’ve ever felt you come.”

  
Two spots of color flower on Sue’s cheeks. “A momentary weakness. Likely brought on by insufficient egg in my evening protein shake.”

  
“Sure,” he says, sarcastically. “I know it always gets me off when I don’t eat enough egg.”

  
She glares at him. “You don’t understand anything. You’ve never had any power – you don’t know what it’s like when the thing you’ve made your entire life gets stripped away from you.”

  
Will laughs, astonished. “Are you seriously that self-involved?” he demands. “Have you ever, for a single second, thought about what you’ve spent the last two years doing to me?”

  
“There’s a difference,” she snaps. “You don’t know how to win. I do.”

  
He gestures between the two of them. “This - you and me - it doesn’t have to be about winning.”

  
“What else is there?” Sue asks him, and her voice is painfully sincere. 

  
Will doesn’t know how to answer her, not in the way he wants to, where he'd make incisive observations and she'd have a revelation. He speaks in snapshots, instead. “Marathoning  _Ice Road Truckers_ ,” he tells her. “Mocha ice cream that you won’t eat in front of me, but keep in the back of your freezer behind the extra-large ice packs. Singing Duran Duran under your breath when you think I’m not listening. The way you pull my hair in bed and I pretend I don't know that it's the part of me you like best.”

  
She folds her hands across her lap. “I’ve gotten used to you," she says, quietly, after a minute. 

  
He understands exactly what she means. “Yeah,” he agrees, taking in the curved slopes of her shoulders against the chair; the slight incline of her head. “Me too.”

  
Except, Will knows, familiarity can’t do what he needs it to do: heal what he knows are their irresolvable differences. It’s what Will returns to with Sue, over and over again: the impossibility of suturing the gap between them, between their priorities, between their values and ethics (or lack thereof). She seeks out war. He craves creation. Will needs desperately to believe in that divide. 

  
And then there’s his glee kids, whom Will can’t think of without the possessive pronoun, the children of his heart and throat. He knows he’s hurt them, even if he didn’t mean it; he still wants to call out after their retreating backs, use the empty phrases he knows so well:  _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?_

  
(To try and explain, with an image meaningless to anyone but him:  _sometimes, in the morning, she draws pictures with my shaving cream on the mirror_.)

  
He thinks about the way Sue’s face softens in her sleep, like she’s finally found the one place that doesn’t require a crusade.

  
“Your kids,” she informs him, intruding on his thoughts with uncanny accuracy, “are gonna come around. Eventually. They love you, for some inconceivable reason.” Sue pronounces  _love_  with an odd emphasis, like it’s rusted in her mouth from disuse, and she doesn’t look at him when she says it.

  
“They’re not going to understand,” Will says, wearily. “How can they, when I don’t?”

  
Sue places her feet on the floor, and reaches across the desk towards Will, silently, holding out her hand, her palm up. 

  
After a brief hesitation, he takes it, threading his fingers between hers.

 

 


End file.
